New Acid

Artissima, in collaboration with the City of Turin, presents New Acid (2019) by artist Basim Magdy (Assiut, Egypt, 1977) at the former Zoological Garden – Parco Michelotti in Turin, in partnership with Hunt Kastner, Prague.

The short film, shot on 16mm, depicts zoo animals inside their cages exchanging illogical messages that connect them to the rest of the world. Through a sequence of chats—where giraffes, ostriches, crocodiles, peacocks, and dolphins talk and mock each other—an absurd yet mysterious form of digital communication emerges, in which the animals question the destiny of their species while addressing an unspecified interlocutor.

Basim Magdy employs acidic color tones combined with a drone-like, hypnotic, and minimal sound design, producing a post-human film that, in turn, seems to humanize the animals.

The Parco Michelotti site is also celebrated through the collaboration between Artissima and C2C Festival, Italy’s largest indoor music festival and one of the most acclaimed avant-pop events worldwide. To enhance the park’s setting, C2C Festival will curate, for the second consecutive year, a site-specific musical selection that invites visitors to embark on a random walk through the spaces of the former zoological garden.